Nensi Dojaka on Building Momentum Beyond Viral Moments
LONDON — It took Nensi Dojaka a little over three years to become a hot brand, her sexy designs with intricate lingerie-inspired details penetrating shop floors and the internet.
The brand’s spring 2023 show was one of the most-viewed collections on the web while influencer marketing platform Lefty calculated that the show generated more than $1.6 million worth of earned media value, which is just slightly under JW Anderson in London.
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The 2021 LVMH Prize for Young Designers winner is in a rare and enviable position. Women worldwide buy her sheer evening gowns for around 4,000 pounds or midi dresses at 1,500 pounds at full price without any hesitation.
Retailers are keen to work with her as well. In recent months alone she launched a bridal capsule with Mytheresa and took over the atrium at the womenswear floor at Selfridges last Christmas with an eveningwear heavy capsule.
“Nensi’s aesthetic and silhouette is one of a kind,” said Jeannie Lee, head of womenswear buying at Selfridges. “The exclusive collection celebrated female confidence, offering glamorous yet intelligent dresses alongside modern tailoring. Perfect for the Selfridges customer, as they are always looking for newness. We saw a great uptake when the collection launched.”
Her stockists have grown from 59 to 90 for the spring 2023 season, with sales rising 129 percent. The brand is expected to become profitable this year.
Dojaka also revealed that an in-house e-commerce site is launching this year, which is expected to cushion the pressure on the brand’s cash flow from the big deposits required in the wholesale model. The site will offer a wider range of seasonal products, as well as some of the brand’s bestsellers.
In the mid to long term, Dojaka said she would like to see the brand open flagships in cities like London, Milan, Paris, and New York.
With such momentum, there has been speculation that Dojaka is in talks with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton executives to take up a creative director role within the group.
Also given the fact that winning the LVMH Prize gives the world’s biggest luxury group first dibs in investing in the brand, it wouldn’t be a surprise that Dojaka eventually reaches a similar deal that Jonathan Anderson made a decade ago when he joined Loewe as creative director, which saw his own brand JW Anderson selling a significant minority stake to LVMH.
Dojaka clarified that she is indeed in touch with Sophie Brocart, chief executive officer at Patou, from the senior leadership at LVMH, but only because she is her business mentor, a perk that came with being the prize winner.
So far she has received valuable guidance in business planning and having doors opened for her. No conversation regarding a potential role or investment has occurred yet, however.
“The good thing about the mentorship is that there were things that I haven’t thought about much. Trademarks, licensing or collaboration contracts, and stuff like this. It was very helpful from a business point of view to have a bit more insight into the industry. Also when the brand started to grow, a lot of things started to show up as well,” Dojaka said during a preview in her studio in Highbury, a quiet and leafy neighborhood in North London.
“At this moment in time, I’ll not say no to any investment opportunities, but I don’t really see it happening yet. There has been no indication towards something like that,” she added.
But the designer admitted that there is now pressure to be constantly relevant because people are now expecting another viral moment every season like there was last September when Emily Ratajkowski walked her runway.
“We are expected to live up to that, which is not easy. Because when we expect stuff, it doesn’t quite go that way. I feel like with how social media is nowadays, there are way too many people expressing so many opinions. It’s easy to get trapped in this little bubble of pressure,” said Dojaka.
With such popularity, she has also attracted criticism for not being inclusive enough by offering larger sizes.
Dojaka rebutted that she has been offering larger sizes in her line sheet for the past two seasons, but the reality is that most retailers remain conservative with sizing. Even if they place orders on larger sizes, the quantity would be marginal when compared to the amount they order for sizes small and medium.
“It’s a very strange phenomenon. I guess because of the nature of the clothes, we’re one of the very few brands that get questioned about it. But we have been using some of the most healthy-looking models that are available to us, and we’re also presenting plus-size looks in the show, even though we don’t have the resources that big brands have,” Dojaka added.
Nevertheless, her blend of seduction, poise, elegance, and quality finishing thanks to the Italian manufacturing partner Cieffe — and a slew of organic celebrity endorsements from the likes of Beyoncé, Anya Taylor-Joy, Olivia Rodrigo, Sienna Miller, and Rita Ora — have put the brand in a strong position to scale.
The majority of today’s young talents are not as fortunate as Dojaka, generating buzz based on media exposure rather than building and growing an actual business.
What has she done differently?
Dojaka said she and her team, which includes Michał Wisniewski, work husband and classmate from Central Saint Martins MA Fashion, and studio assistant Nicole De Marco, make sure that everything she puts on the runway and that is worn on red carpets is shop-floor ready.
For example, Zendaya wore a skin-tight custom-made sheer gown with a heart-shape detail at the front to the after party of the “Dune” premiere in London. A version of that dress first appeared as part of a charity runway show curated by Carine Roitfeld for The Cinema Against AIDS gala.
The moment went so viral that it motivated Dojaka to expand into eveningwear, which enabled her to generate a slew of exclusive deals with retailers including Bergdorf Goodman, 24S, and Ssense.
“For me and Michał, just because of the way we were trained, having a real product is the most important thing. Creating an image out there that is going to just live on Instagram is valuable, but it loses its value very quickly,” said Dojaka.
The brand has also been fine-tuning its products with feedback from consumers, buyers, and factories.
For example, in the beginning the fabrications were much lighter. The brand now uses thicker jerseys that hang a bit better on the body.
“We even had cases breaking and we had to understand why. I think all these things make the products better and better, as we can offer clearer deliverables to the factory,” Dojaka added.
This year, the Albania-born designer is looking to expand the offering. She is launching a shoe line in the spring 2023 season. A range of kitten heels in the same color palette as her fashion designs will be available at more than 20 high-end fashion retailers worldwide from next month.
Her jewelry collaboration with Andrew Bunney, creator of the earring Sam Smith wore for the cover of his new album “Gloria,” is gaining ground as well. With many buyers showing interest, it’s understood their collaborative offering will be available in stores later this year.
While many women would still go for her sexy styles, Dojaka is working with her team to expand the offering and eventually build a wardrobe for the Nensi Dojaka woman.
“I guess we just have to believe in it for a few seasons. It is quite disheartening at first because you see a dress sold in the hundreds and then you don’t have any response to certain things in the collection. But I think it’s just a matter of time because it’s about also educating people that will also have these other things and I think I’m not doing it well enough yet,” Dojaka said.
For the fall 2023 collection, which is scheduled to be presented on Sunday at the same studio space she used for the previous season around Caledonian Road, Dojaka said the show will offer “something a bit more for everyday” and “something our mothers can wear,” while continuing to push her vision for what a modern, intellectual, confident woman can wear to a dinner date with fine food and wine.
Fun fact: Dojaka is a real foodie and enjoys ordering pizzas, sushi, or Five Guys burgers for the team for lunch. At night, she loves to take her friends to her longtime boyfriend Lynus Lim’s modern izakaya restaurant Evernight at Nine Elms, opposite the new American Embassy. Her favorite dishes are beef teriyaki, and chicken meatball skewers.
Back to the new collection, during the preview, Dojaka showcased a beautiful open long coat with a narrow waist detail, as well as a series of cardigans that can be worn outside her signature bralettes.
There are still several dresses with thoughtful cutouts and intricate hand-pleated bra detail, and some of them are embellished with Swarovski crystals. There are also a few bright looks made with deadstock fabric sourced from LVMH’s repurposing platform Nona Source.
Born in Tirana, the capital of Albania, Dojaka moved to the U.K. at the age of 16 to attend boarding school in Shrewsbury, England, where she did fine art, double maths, and English literature. She later enrolled in BA lingerie at the London College of Fashion, after a foundation year at Central Saint Martins.
Dojaka later got offered a place at MA fashion in womenswear at Central Saint Martins by course director Fabio Piras. She graduated in 2019 and her collection was presented at the press show during London Fashion Week in February that year.
By December, it was revealed that she would showcase as part of Lulu Kennedy’s emerging talent support platform Fashion East alongside Goom Heo, Saul Nash, Ancuta Sarca, and Gareth Wrighton.
After one coed runway show in February 2020, with the impact of COVID-19, Dojaka presented two of her following collections digitally. Meanwhile, her sexy little cut-out dresses became some of the most searched items on Lyst, and the brand began to receive financial support from Newgen, British Fashion Council’s own young talent support program.
She was then shortlisted as one of the 20 finalists for the 2021 LVMH Prize for Young Designers and took home the grand prize in Sept 2021, two weeks before her solo debut show for the spring 2022 season during London Fashion Week. She snapped up the BFC Foundation Award for emerging talent at Fashion Awards later that year.
Asked about her most immediate plan after the show, Dojaka said she would take her boyfriend to Kiln, a popular Thai eatery in Soho that’s one of her favorite places in London. Her must-haves there include smoked sausage, charcoal-grilled fish, and glass noodles with crab meat served in a clay pot.
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